Drawing a moose is difficult

While taking that art class last year, after drawing some animals from photos like this pencil drawing of my son or this acrylic giraffe, and even free handing this pastel cow, I got the insane notion (hind sight being 20-20) to attempt to draw a moose.

Why?

Well, the main reason was that I was not able to find a good picture of a moose from a good angle with the right "look". The "look" was all in my head. So, I jumped in, both feet, and well... I'll let you judge.

I started out drawing a moose four or five times, then painting it over with white paint and start over drawing a moose by looking at a little hand sketch I made first.



I even took an art field trip (?!) to my local ZGallerie and looked intensely at a moose they had in the store. This moose wasn't kind looking enough for what I had in mind. It was too anorexic looking which made it look too harsh for the more gentle, almost humorous moose I had in mind.



After realizing this was the best I could do at the moment finally settling on this drawing, I began adding color.



And more color, light and shade. The antlers were so difficult for me to imagine. Now that I look at the white ZGallerie moose, I can see that the antlers should be much more "cupped", than what I did here. Oh well... another moose, another time



More layers. What I ended up really liking about my moose is the gentleness and slight humoristic look that he has. I love that he is looking down at the viewer with a somewhat inquisitive look. Almost as if to say "Why you looking at my antlers?".

Right?

Right now he is hanging in my entry hall. I used him as the focal piece in my recent hallway make-over for the submission to the Frog tape contest last summer.





Here he is close up.



What does a moose say? I don't know. Mrhhhrrrrr?